The Man Who Would Be King

There’s a movie I’ve been trying to track down for some time now; since I saw about an hour of it on AMC over a year ago. The Man Who Would Be King. Bam.

This flick has it all, or at least most of it. I love character-driven stories, especially those with a small, tightly-knit cast. Sleuth, True West, Mystery of Irma Vep, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Waiting for Godot, (hell, even Beaches) all have something in common: The majority (or all) of the action goes on between only two actors. Man Who Would Be King just joined the list.

Michael Caine (yay!) and Sean Freakin’ Connery play a pair of scoundrels seeking their fortunes off the charted map, into the Indian country of Kafiristan. It’s not long before Connery is mistaken for a god (involving a one-in-a-million shot with an arrow), and he and Caine decide to exploit the myth.

I love this flick. I’ve only seen it once and I already love this flick. True, Caine and Connery have cast-mates numbering in the thousands (the natives of Kafiristan), but the natives are more a force of nature than an entity of individuals. None of them can be understood without a damned-convenient-to-be-on-hand translator, but their reactions to our duo’s ministrations and schemes can be discerned even without understanding the local language.

I’m not going to spoil the story if you haven’t seen it, or read Rudyard Kipling’s short story on which it’s based. Just go rent it. If you’re an earnest fan of Michael Caine or Sean Connery, go ahead and buy the thing.

(Note: on the DVD of Shaun of the Dead, another newly-minted favorite, the cast does a tribute called “The Man Who Would Be Shaun”. The Caine imitation is spot on, and the Connery is passable.)

I do a pretty good Sean Connery imitation, myself. Michael Caine’s voice has eluded me so far, but if I could ever master it, I could do The Man Who Would Be King as a radio drama all by my onesies. How's that for a slice of fried gold...